Javan Fox Clark (1852-1938)

                                       Portrait courtesy of the Lucy Bensley Center/Concord Historical Society.

  Possessing a unique first name, Javan Fox Clark was for many years at the forefront of political and business doings in his native village of Springville in Erie County, New York. A local sawmill operator, Clark was a church deacon and board of trustees member and entered politics with his service as superintendent of highways and village assessor. He earns placement here on the site for his time as village president of Springville, which he held for one term. Credit goes out to the Lucy Bensley Center and the Concord Historical Society for their aid in yielding further information on Clark, as well as the photos of both he and his wife shown in this write-up.

  A native of Ashford, Erie County, New York, Javan Fox Clark was born on August 31, 1852, the second of eight children of Frederick (1826-1906) and Corinna (Fox) Clark (1830-1913). He removed to Springville with his family at age 17, and in the early 1870s enrolled at the Griffith Institute in that village, where he excelled in arithmetic. Following graduation, he married on June 3, 1874, to Ann Elizabeth "Libbie" Churchill (1853-1925), and the couple's fifty-one-year union produced two daughters, Jessie (1877-1893) and Jennie Mabel (Clark) Glass (1879-1954). In that same year, Clark was named an overseer of highways for the town of Concord; his first public office.

  In the late 1870s Clark operated a sawmill at Morton's Corners, and in 1882 sold his property to Nicholas Bolender. Prior to its sale, Clark suffered a health scare in 1881 when he underwent surgery to remove a cancerous growth from his nose. After the sale of his mill, Clark assisted his father Frederick on the latter's farm, and in the mid-1880s is noted as dealing in "runners for log boats" on Main Street in Springville. In 1901 he was a candidate for highway commissioner for Concord and won the election that November. He served in that capacity until at least 1903 when he garnered the Republican nomination for village assessor. Described as a man "well qualified to estimate the value of property", Clark was one of three assessors elected that November, and in the year following Clark and his wife were gifted a new couch on the occasion of their thirtieth wedding anniversary. A gift from friends, the couch was followed by an ice cream and cake social.

  Javan Fox Clark was reelected as village assessor in November 1905 and continued in that post into 1909. In that year he was elected as superintendent of highways, where he served until 1911. In March 1915 he was elected as village president of Springville, and soon afterward saw a proposition voted on that saw $2000 appropriated for the "purpose of purchasing and installing a new pump in the pump station of the village waterworks."

From the Buffalo Evening News, March 17, 1915.

Libbie Clark (1853-1925), wife of Javan F. Clark. Courtesy of the Lucy Bensley Center.

  Following his term, Javan Clark is mentioned as an employee at the sawmill of L.J. Shuttleworth, and in 1917 watched as his employer's building was destroyed by fire. Also destroyed was the company's planing mill "and all the tools and machinery." No lives were lost in the fire, and through the actions of the Borden Fire Company, adjacent buildings and lumber were saved.

  In June 1924 Clark and his wife Libbie celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, a gathering that was attended by over sixty relatives and friends. The couple was gifted $100 in gold and were serenaded by piano and vocal accompaniment. Libbie Clark died one year later on August 27, 1924, and Javan never remarried following her death. The latter portion of Clark's life was spent devoted to working with the local Free Baptist Church, serving as chairman of its board of trustees. He was a church deacon for over thirty years and had first joined that church during his youth.

  Javan Fox Clark died in Springville on June 18, 1938, at age 86. He was survived by his daughter Jennie and was interred alongside his wife and daughter Jessie at the Maplewood Cemetery in Springville.

From the Springville Journal, June 30, 1938.

Zala Alphonzo Church (1852-1922)

  A distinguished figure in Iowa law circles, Zala Alphonso Church served sixteen years as a district court judge and had previously served a term as mayor of his adopted hometown of Jefferson. A native son of Wisconsin, Zala A. Church was born in the small town of Dayton on May 28, 1852, one of four children born to Harvey M. (1816-1897) and Elizabeth Tucker Church (1818-1916). The reason behind Harvey and Elizabeth bestowing the unusual first name "Zala" upon their son is unknown at the time of this writing, and one's imagination can run wild thinking of the possibilities! 

   As a child, Zala Church attended the common schools of his hometown of Dayton and later studied at the Evansville, Wisconsin Seminary. After his studies at the latter school, he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin and after some study began reading law at that institution's law school, graduating in the class of 1876. Following his graduation, he relocated to Jefferson, Iowa in 1878 and established a law practice with fellow attorney Harvey Potter in the firm of Potter and Church. After a year in this firm, Church founded the practice of Head and Church with attorney A.M. Head and operated in this partnership from 1879-1882. Zala Alphonzo Church married on May 4, 1881, in Green County to Eliza May McCully (1857-1938). Wed for over four decades, the Church's became the parents of three daughters, Iza (1882-1910), Bessie (1887-1973), and Theo (1889-1981).

   The firm of Head and Church dissolved in 1882 and for several years Zala Church operated alone in Jefferson. He is recorded by the Past and Present of Greene County, Iowa as serving as mayor of that town for one term and gave to it "a businesslike, progressive administration." Church also occupied other local offices in addition to his stint as mayor, serving at various times as justice of the peace, Greene County attorney, Greene County recorder, and president of the county school board. In 1888 Church served as a Republican Presidential elector for Benjamin Harrison and in 1894 was elected as District Court Judge for Iowa's Sixteenth Judicial District.

Zala A. Church, from the University of Wisconsin and Its History and Its Alumni,  1900.

   Taking his seat in January 1895, Church succeeded Judge George Washington Paine and was re-elected as judge three times, serving a total of sixteen years on the bench. Church's contribution to Iowa jurisprudence was remarked in the Annual Proceedings of the Iowa Bar Association as having:

"The admirable quality of being able to grasp the meat of a controversy and this quality served him well in the discharge of his judicial duties. He was always considerate of counsel before him. As a practitioner Judge Church was a helpful counsellor, working with an unusually generous spirit and always disposed to accord with others views greater weight and importance than his own. At all times he was disposed to give due consideration to the position of his adversary and never carried acrimony out of the courtroom, no matter how spirited may have been the controversies in which he participated."

   In addition to his judicial work, Zala Church is remarked as being a distinguished Mason, attaining the 32nd degree. Active in other fraternal bodies, Church was a Shriner, a member of the Knights of Pythias, and a past grand master of the Iowa state chapter of the International Order of Odd Fellows. Upon his retirement from the bench in 1911 Church returned to practicing law, operating a joint firm with attorney D.C. McCully for a time, and was still actively practicing until a few weeks before his death, which occurred on January 15, 1922, at his home in Jefferson, Iowa.  Following his death, a substantial obituary for the departed judge was published in the Carroll, Iowa Herald, which denotes that Church:

"Presided with dignity and associated with friends with a degree of good fellowship that was appreciated by his friends all over the district. He was a scholarly man who took interest in educational matters in his court and outside and delighted to associate with people who read and traveled and thought."

  Church's funeral was held on January 18, 1922, and he was later buried at the Jefferson Cemetery. May McCully Church was also interred here after she died in 1938.

From the Jefferson, Iowa Herald, January 18, 1922.